Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week.
Social networks are, of course, a great way to drive traffic to a website, and David and Daveed found it astounding this week that some major companies ignore the marketing potential of image-oriented social networks including Pinterest and Instagram. If you need some inspiration, Donna Moritz. provides some great tips on how businesses can use Pinterest, a social network that has grown to 10 million users faster than any other single site in history. And for the Polariod-influenced photo-sharing network Instagram, Nell Terry wrote a great quick primer for those wanting to market their businesses using Instagram.
While some organizations use a social network as their main means of online marketing, Brent is confident that having a website is still a basic requirement for all businesses. Why? For one, no one can take your website away (at least under normal circumstances), whereas the time and effort you put into a social network could be prone to crashes, administrative changes, and all sorts of other unknown variables. At the bare minimum, owning a website assures you that you’re in control.
We thought this week about how it’s time Internet marketers stop focusing solely on tricking search engines, which change and improve their search algorithms constantly. Creating content that’s meaningful doesn’t just fill up space is a great way to build search recognition, but also build a community, brand value, awareness, and word of mouth. Rather than trick someone into getting to your page, the best content works toward driving qualified traffic and conversions.
And, finally, Scott had fun playing with a responsive cat designed by Masayuki Kido. When you change the dimensions of the browser window, you’ll see him stretch and change. Unlike many cats we’ve known, he responds to human interaction quite amicably.